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Charlotte-Douglas Airport (CLT) Expansion


uptownliving

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^Yeah but isn't that so they can purchase Airbus aircraft to replace them? They have a considerable # on order, but not yet delivered. Maybe they will have to get rid of the 737's and not take delivery on the Airbus planes. (to follow suit with United, Continental and the rest to come)

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Some of them are being replaced with new Airbus aircraft which have been and continue to come in. The 737s are also being replaced with Embraer 190s which have been and continue to come in. But its not a 1 for 1 replacement. Their fleet has been shrinking in overall size for years now.

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Is this regular scheduled service?

Yes, Lufthansa flight 428 Munich to Charlotte (DLH428). Usually scheduled/arrives daily around 3PM or 3:30PM

Often they have used the Airbus 330, and occasionally the Airbus A340-313x but today was the first day for the A340-600 (aka 346). It arrived today at 3:26PM.

Edited by InitialD
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Yes, Lufthansa flight 428 Munich to Charlotte (DLH428). Usually scheduled/arrives daily around 3PM or 3:30PM

Often they have used the Airbus 330, and occasionally the Airbus A340-313x but today was the first day for the A340-600 (aka 346). It arrived today at 3:26PM.

The 346 is my favorite bird.

From a previous post, someone had indicated that this is a Munich flight. Is this correct?

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Looks like Charlotte escaped relatively unscathed in the latest US Airways reductions announcement. Doesn't look like Charlotte will see any major changes. Looks like most of the reductions will be happening in Las Vegas.

Even though they cancelled the leases on 2 widebody A330 planes scheduled for 2009 delivery they will still receive 3 new A330 in 2009...so the planned Charlotte-Paris flight might still be in the works for next summer.

Full announcement here.

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Hmm. So US Air is going to

  • Lay off 1500 people
  • Start charging for all bags
  • Start charging for refreshments
  • Adding fees to ticketing
  • Change its FF program to make it more difficult to get free trips
  • Doesn't make any promises there won't be more cost cutting in the near future. The CEO today said something like they need to be charging $600/seat where they are getting an average of $350.

I am missing why this is good for Charlotte.

Aside from that, it looks as if they are going to be forgoing a lot of purchases from Airbus as I suggested they would do above.

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I had planned on taking a long weekend to Boston, but when I saw the fares on Expedia and Travelocity, I decided it was not worth the price.

Would like to plan on a trip to Tampa in January, looked at those fares - and pretty much the same thing. I can only imagine what it will be if I wait until September or October.

The fares were not even for USAirways! So, I can't even begin to think how much business they are losing. It is almost like a catch 22. They raise the fares, when pretty much everyone is rethinking their disposable income, and you risk turning people away because they can't afford it.

And if the alternative is driving - well, gas to get there and back is probably going to be around the same thing!

I'm also curious to see how all of the shifting the airlines are doing now is going to affect the 4th runway here at CLT. I would be inclined to believe that Mr. Orr is keeping his had close to his vest.

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Hardly any news is good these days in the US Airline business. The point is that it could have been a lot worse for Charlotte...but most of those 1500 job cuts will be coming from elsewhere in the US Airways system and Charlotte will be roughly the same as it is today with regards to air service.

So far they have only cancelled the lease on 2 airplanes that are not coming from Airbus. It was a private lease deal for 2 Swiss Air planes that has been nixed. The agreement between US Airways and Airbus still stands for the new aircraft on order. They are still taking delivery of new A321's this year and new A320's and A330's next year.

Regarding the 4th runway I don't think this recent announcement is going to affect it. The contracts have already been signed to build the runway and paving will begin next month. Also USAirways has not announced any major flight reductions for Charlotte so from that standpoint it will still be needed to releive congestion. Back 5 years ago they estimated that the new runway will save the airlines in Charlotte $50M per year in fuel costs....now that fuel cost has gone up so much I would not be surprised if that annual savings was closer to $100M per year.

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I had planned on taking a long weekend to Boston, but when I saw the fares on Expedia and Travelocity, I decided it was not worth the price......

There is actually pretty decent train service between Charlotte and the NE corridor mainly due to the NC sponsored train that leaves Charlotte each morning that heads to Raleigh, DC, and NYC. In DC you could transfer over to Amtrak's Acela for the final leg. The NC train site URL is http://www.bytrain.org .

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There is actually pretty decent train service between Charlotte and the NE corridor mainly due to the NC sponsored train that leaves Charlotte each morning that heads to Raleigh, DC, and NYC. In DC you could transfer over to Amtrak's Acela for the final leg. The NC train site URL is http://www.bytrain.org .

US Airways has always been a dominant carrier in the East Coast. Part of the reason of the buyout of AmericaWest was to give USA a larger share out West. I myself would agree that the Charlotte hub would not be scathed. I do just wonder how much longer the airline industry will hold before foreign carriers start to buy major stakes into our carriers. According to some analyst I heard yacking on the radio, gas prices could remain high well into 2009.

Amtrak will be receiving $15 billion in funding from the Feds over the next ten years (not sure on the number years.) Part of the funding maybe set aside for high speed rail to continue south of DC. I heard this from Bloomberg. They did not mention how far south.

Are there any LCC's that serve CLT?

Edited by Shakman
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US Airways has always been a dominant carrier in the East Coast. .....
Uhh, not not really. 20 years ago the dominate carriers on the East coast were Delta, Eastern Airlines and Piedmont. It was Piedmont that built the hub in Charlotte. USAir purchased Piedmont in 1989 and that was how the gained they status they have now. There were many at the time that said it should have been the other way around because the quality of service fell dramatically after the merger. I can personally state that I enjoyed flying on Piedmont much more than on USA.

Furthermore USA did not buyout AmericaWest, it was the other way around. The airline that exists now is basically AmericaWest controlling the former USA. They of course change the name of the resulting airline to US Airways.

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Uhh, not not really. 20 years ago the dominate carriers on the East coast were Delta, Eastern Airlines and Piedmont. It was Piedmont that built the hub in Charlotte. USAir purchased Piedmont in 1989 and that was how the gained they status they have now. There were many at the time that said it should have been the other way around because the quality of service fell dramatically after the merger. I can personally state that I enjoyed flying on Piedmont much more than on USA.

Furthermore USA did not buyout AmericaWest, it was the other way around. The airline that exists now is basically AmericaWest controlling the former USA. They of course change the name of the resulting airline to US Airways.

Ohh... I meant within the last ten years. Should have stated my thread in a manner to indicate such. I agree that after Piedmont, USA's quality went down. There number of incidents as well spiked shortly there after. At one point the airline was nick-named US Scare.

Here is why I said "merger". See link to CNN Money article:

http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/19/news/midca...lines/index.htm

It is all mute at this point, USA is joining a growing number of other US carriers that will be cutting routes and jobs.

Edited by Shakman
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  • 2 weeks later...

Could Charlotte support a daily Ba Flight to Heathrow using a 763. How were the loads on the Ba flight back when they operated a codeshare with us to Gatwick?

BA stopped flying to Charlotte due to lack of interest. Their prices where considerably higher than USA, so most people chose to fly USA to the UK. This was in the days where flying was considerably cheaper and I would expect that demand isn't as high now. I see no advantage in flying to Heathrow from Charlotte over going to Gatwick. Heathrow is more congested, more difficult to get through, and really doesn't offer any advantages to central London over flying to Gatwick. In both cases the easiest way to get into London is just to take the express train. The tube does go to Heathrow, but it is a very long trip (over an hour) because the underground does not have express service and it is a very long way.

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BA stopped flying to Charlotte due to lack of interest. Their prices where considerably higher than USA, so most people chose to fly USA to the UK. This was in the days where flying was considerably cheaper and I would expect that demand isn't as high now. I see no advantage in flying to Heathrow from Charlotte over going to Gatwick. Heathrow is more congested, more difficult to get through, and really doesn't offer any advantages to central London over flying to Gatwick. In both cases the easiest way to get into London is just to take the express train. The tube does go to Heathrow, but it is a very long trip (over an hour) because the underground does not have express service and it is a very long way.

I would think a Heathrow would be more sucessful than a Gatwick link. Being a Brit myself I fly back home regularly and have used both Heathrow and Gatwick. Gatwick is definitely the better choice for going into London but lets not forget that there are a lot of people like myself who are going to other places in England too. Flying into Heathrow is 100x easier to deal with especially if you're heading out into the West Country. As a result of this I actually fly via DC, Chicago or Phily now because I prefer the convenience of Heathrow. It would be interesting to know how many people follow the same logic as me, because my feeling is that US maybe pleasantly surprised by the response - plus since CLT is an expanding hub it would be perfect to have other people connect here (I'm probably a little biased on the last point though :lol: )

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BA stopped flying to Charlotte due to lack of interest. Their prices where considerably higher than USA, so most people chose to fly USA to the UK. This was in the days where flying was considerably cheaper and I would expect that demand isn't as high now. I see no advantage in flying to Heathrow from Charlotte over going to Gatwick. Heathrow is more congested, more difficult to get through, and really doesn't offer any advantages to central London over flying to Gatwick. In both cases the easiest way to get into London is just to take the express train. The tube does go to Heathrow, but it is a very long trip (over an hour) because the underground does not have express service and it is a very long way.

My method is to get on the internet and book a bus ride through National Express (U.K. bus service) into London. It is cheap and a pretty nice ride. OF course it is longer from Gatewick. I ususally ride it into Golder's Green and it is about one third the cost of a train. If one wants to defy the cost of things in the U.K. I would highly advise making reservations with them. You will thank me latericon4.gif

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